Indefinite Leave to Remain: Healthcare Workers

Tony Vaughan Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 631412 relating to indefinite leave to remain for healthcare workers.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. The petition we are debating today was created by Thomas Thulani Mthetho, and this is what it says:

“Healthcare workers are meant to have lived in the UK for at least five years before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain. With the work they do and the demand for their skills worldwide, they deserve to get residency status much quicker. Most healthcare workers are working under extreme pressure in the UK.

Many countries offer immediate residency status for occupations that are in high demand or extremely short. The UK has been a destination for most foreign nurses and doctors, and it is time for the Government to show they care and also appreciate the workers by making some of the restrictions in terms of residency more favourable. This could also reduce the number of care workers leaving the country for other countries that offer better conditions.”

The petition has attracted 52,962 signatures nationally. Before the election, the Petitions Committee decided that Thomas’s petition would be debated, which has led to the debate taking place today. I am leading the debate as a member of the new Petitions Committee. Before I get into the issues raised by Thomas’s petition, I want to tell Members a little bit about his experiences and what led him to make the petition. I have changed a few aspects of his story.

Thomas is a qualified nurse. While living in South Africa, Thomas approached a recruitment agency seeking healthcare staff in the UK. He had to sit English exams and, if he passed them, he would be able to enter the UK to work in the private healthcare sector. The contract was for three years. If he left before that, he would have to pay back the exam fees and the flight to the UK, which he understood would have been about £1,500. Thomas passed his exams and came to the UK on the health and care worker visa to work in a private nursing home. He worked mainly as a carer, and his contractual hours were 38 hours a week on minimum wage. He was sending money back to his family in South Africa, who depended on that money.

After starting work, he found that his employer required him to work 20 hours over his contractual hours, and regularly worked 60 hours a week. He would work five 12-hour shifts, five days in a row. He asked his employer if he could work less, but it refused. He approached the Royal College of Nursing, which told him that he had the right to refuse to do extra hours, but he felt that he was in an impossible situation. If he insisted that he do fewer hours, he was jeopardising his job, and so he did not feel able to seek legal advice about his situation.

After 11 months, he decided to leave, but his employer told him that he could not, and that if he did, he would be reported to the Nursing and Midwifery Council. It also said that he would have to pay £6,000, even though according to the original agreement, it was only £1,500 if he left before three years. He said he would not pay, it said it did not care, and that he would pay anyway. When he eventually left, it managed to deduct the £6,000 from his new wage packet.

Thomas knows of scores of people who have had an experience like his. All of them accepted breaches of their contract and employment rights for fear of jeopardising their job. Some had allegations fabricated against them by their employer to justify an abusive dismissal when they refused to accept breaches of their rights. Thomas believes that employers all over the country are abusing the Home Office system for sponsoring workers and are subjecting their employees to modern slavery, and doing so with impunity.

Thomas’s petition is about the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain. He believes that if a qualifying period for healthcare workers was two years instead of five, the window in which the employee is locked in with their employer, and in which the potential for abuse is the highest, would be reduced. Thomas’s solution to the problem of which he has been the victim deserves careful thought, and I ask the Government first to review the qualifying period for those in his position. Thomas’s awful experiences show that there are gaping holes in the enforcement of employment rights standards in this country, especially in sectors such as healthcare. In a report published this month, the Work Rights Centre found that migrants working in adult social care, who constitute as much as 32% of care workers in the UK, face unsustainable working hours, low levels of pay and persistent breaches of employment rights. They fear that if they report their employers to the authorities, they risk having their visa curtailed, as some employers use the threat of curtailment to silence grievances. The report also found that non-compliance by visa sponsors—employers—is widespread. The most common employment rights breach is unfair dismissal, followed by unauthorised deduction from wages and discrimination, so it is clear that proper enforcement of labour standards is needed urgently.

I was encouraged to see that part 5 of the Employment Rights Bill, which the new Labour Government recently laid before Parliament, deals with the enforcement of labour market legislation. Under the Government’s plans, an agency will be set up to enforce employment rights, including on the national minimum wage, holiday pay, gangmasters licensing and modern slavery. The agency will consolidate enforcement bodies, such as His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs minimum wage enforcement team, into a single agency with greater powers, including powers to require that information be given, and powers to enter employers’ premises and require undertakings backed by criminal penalties. The Government hope that the agency will be a recognisable single brand so that individuals know where to go for help, as that would lead to a more effective use of resources.

It will be critical for the agency to take a preventive approach and address workers’ rights violations before they deteriorate to the level of slavery. Workers need to be able to trust it and come forward, so secure reporting needs to be embedded into it. It makes complete sense for employment rights to be enforced across the board, including alongside modern slavery, so my second question is: will the Government confirm that the new agency will police employment standards for those subject to immigration control, including those working in the UK health system under the UK health and care worker visa?

When I spoke to Thomas before this debate, he said that one of the things about the health and care worker visa he was most concerned about was being locked in with his employer because, putting the fees issue aside, his visa would be at risk if he left. At the moment, somebody in Thomas’s position who leaves their employment has a 60-day grace period to find a new employer. After that, they are illegally present in the UK. There appears to be no published policy that says that if somebody has faced exploitation or fraud by their sponsor, they are given a longer period to find a new job. Other countries have a bridging arrangement. For example, Australia has a migrant worker justice visa, so if somebody finds themselves in a position of exploitation or fraud, the Government can support them to leave it. In the UK, if somebody does not find a new employer after 60 days and becomes illegally present, there is no way back into the immigration system. That, in turn, creates pressure to go into the already overloaded national referral mechanism where that may not be necessary.

There is another barrier to leaving an exploitative healthcare workplace. If the worker leaves their main sponsoring employer or is unfairly dismissed, they are not allowed to work in a temporary job while they look for a new sponsor. There is a right to work for up to 20 hours a week in supplementary employment, but not if somebody leaves the main sponsor employer or is dismissed. The right to work up to 20 hours may apply where the employer loses their licence, but that is not enough to pay bills in the meantime while a new sponsor is found. A migrant justice visa that dropped the requirement to work only for the sponsoring employer in an exploitation situation would remove that barrier to leaving the exploitive situation, so my third question to the Government is: can any consideration be given to providing greater clarity and flexibility on the bridging arrangements when a worker on the health and care worker visa finds themselves in an exploitive situation?

We want all workers to be treated fairly, with rights and protections, so everybody can contribute fully to society without extra hurdles and financial pressures. We want people to be able to contribute in the long term. It goes without saying that all workers should be free from fear of exploitation. Thomas’s petition proposes one way in which those objectives might be addressed, and I have asked the Minister about others. There are many other sides to this debate and there is much more to be said, but I have set the scene and look forward to hearing other Members’ contributions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Vaughan]

The debate has underlined that the UK desperately needs care workers from abroad. As I said earlier, about 33% of our care workers come from abroad, yet they are leaving in their thousands, as other hon. Members have pointed out. They are also being exploited because the system does not currently enforce labour rights. All the while, there is a recruitment crisis in health and social care.

I would like to declare an interest: my mother worked as a care worker for decades before she retired two years ago. She came from the Philippines in the 1970s and worked as a carer in the NHS and in nursing homes, and I know from her experiences that the work was hard. I also know that that is not the chosen career for many younger people, and I thank and congratulate everybody who works in the care sector to provide that vital public service.

I completely agree with other Members about the need to encourage apprenticeships, improve conditions and not treat immigration as an alternative to training. The reality at the moment is that we need the 33% of care workers who come from abroad, and a lot of work needs to be done to make sure that the care profession is seen as attractive to those not already working in it.

I welcome the acknowledgment from the Government of the need to prioritise tackling exploitation. I also welcome the actions to enforce labour standards that the Minister outlined, but I wonder whether there is another way of doing that. Ongoing contact between the Home Office and employers would ensure that employer non-compliance was addressed before breaches become so serious that revoking the sponsor licence is the only option. It would avoid other employees being left out in the cold and losing their jobs. I would hope that the fair work agency will provide the powers, resourcing and enforcement officers to ensure that there is ongoing contact, so that the extreme step of revoking sponsor licences is not the only tool in the box.

I note the point made by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), about the 20-hour period. My understanding is that if someone is in a situation of exploitation and they lose their job, either by termination or resignation, the immigration rules are clear that they are not allowed to work at all in the 20-hour period. That barrier to leaving an exploitative situation is very real.

I finish by thanking everyone for their contributions to the debate. I also give particular thanks to Thomas for putting himself out there and starting this petition. The number of signatories shows that this is an issue of concern for many people, and I hope this debate has given Thomas some reassurance that our system has considered it carefully. I encourage everyone to continue to use the petitions system, which is a great way of participating in our democracy.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 631412 relating to indefinite leave to remain for healthcare workers.

Educational Opportunities

Tony Vaughan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling barriers to educational opportunities.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard.

In the UK today, most 18-year-olds—around 64%—do not go to university. I want to focus on the barriers facing the 64% of young people in accessing the education and training that they need to lead fulfilling working lives. I do not believe that they have benefited from the same educational opportunities as the minority of young people who leave school for university, and that makes no moral, social or economic sense. In my view, our system of vocational education and training is not working for the 64%, or for our country.

My constituency of Folkestone and Hythe has incredible potential for a thriving vocational education and training system. It has strengths in the creative industries, independent retail, tourism and hospitality, as well as green energy and nuclear decommissioning. We are home to the Little Cheyne Court wind farm and the former Dungeness nuclear power station. However, the potential for a technical education system to supply those industries, and others, with skilled workers in both Folkestone and Hythe and the UK as a whole remains untapped. In 2022-23, there were 677 apprenticeship starts in Folkestone and Hythe, but only five in the leisure, tourism and travel sector, despite the size of that sector. And despite the significant number of regeneration projects in Folkestone and Hythe, the number of apprenticeship starts in construction, planning and the built environment fell by 49% in 2022-23 compared with the previous year.

Our country has some incredible further education colleges; I commend the work of East Kent college in Folkestone. When I visited during the general election campaign, I was shown workshops, kitchens and classrooms where, among many other vocations, the builders, electricians, carpenters, programmers, chefs and healthcare workers of the future are being educated. The college, which was judged to be “outstanding” by Ofsted in 2023, offers an incredible range of qualifications, including BTecs and T-levels. It offers adult education and there is also a junior college, with a two-year creative curriculum for learners aged 14 and over who want to specialise in arts or business studies. I thank its staff and students for their hard work, and for the grilling that they gave me and the other candidates at a hustings event hosted by the college before the election.

Unfortunately, in many colleges like East Kent college, not all students who complete courses in specialist areas actually go on to work in those fields. That is not always down to students changing their minds; it is also because of the lack of jobs and apprenticeships available in the labour market. Under 14 years of Conservative Governments, apprenticeships starts plummeted, the apprenticeship levy was exposed as inadequate and further education was starved of vital funds. In 2015-16, the total number of apprenticeship starts was 509,000; by 2022-23, that number had fallen to 337,000. Between 2017 and 2024, the number of engineering apprenticeship starts fell by 42%. It was encouraging to see that apprenticeship starts grew by 3% in the month Labour took office, demonstrating employers’ optimism following the change of Government.

I am afraid to say that the Conservatives’ reforms, such as the apprenticeship levy and T-levels, were ineffective. There was not enough flexibility built into the apprenticeship levy and not enough investment in apprenticeships for younger learners. As the chief executive officer of Make UK, Stephen Phipson, has said, successive Governments have provided inadequate funding for engineering apprenticeships, rendering them uneconomical for FE colleges and private providers to deliver. Neither have we had proper alignment between our industrial and our vocational education strategies.

As a result, our skills policy has not been supporting the sectors of our economy we most need to grow. Sectors such as battery technology, electrical vehicle production and renewable technology manufacturing do not receive the funding for apprenticeships that they need, and in turn do not benefit from a steady supply of skilled workers. We need to end the mismatch between what is taught and the skills needed by the labour market. I warmly welcome the Government’s agenda for skills and vocational education and the Budget announcement of an additional £300 million funding boost for further education next year. But we know that in this policy area, as in so many others, funding is not enough—ambitious reform is what we need.

I will touch on three aspects of the Government skills policy: Skills England, devolution and reform of the apprenticeship levy. I support the creation of Skills England, which will end the fractured skills landscape and bring together combined authorities, businesses, workers, trade unions and colleges so that there is co-ordination to meet local economies’ skills needs. It is incredibly important that Skills England will be a strategic body so that it can make sure that our industrial strategy, Invest 2035, and the vocational educational strategy work as one. Only then will sectors such as advanced manufacturing, which is rightly a focus of our Invest 2035 plan, benefit from a predictable supply of skilled labour.

I also support the fact that part of Skills England’s mandate will be to collaborate with the Migration Advisory Committee so that we ensure that our own young talent is trained up and joins our labour market before we reach out to recruit from abroad. We have an abundance of young talent. This is about ensuring that our skills policy makes the most of the talent, work ethic and creativity of our young people while having an immigration system that welcomes the workers we need to get our economy growing and our public services working again. The Migration Advisory Committee has for far too long looked at labour market shortages in a vacuum without thinking about how our skills policy can address those shortages in the long term.

I also believe that it is important for more powers over skills and technical education to be devolved, because the UK still has variation in our regional economies. For example, the creative industries are very important in Folkestone and Hythe, and nationally that sector contributed £124 billion to the UK economy in ’22. In the west midlands, the automotive sector is important. On Teesside, there is a resilient chemical sector, and there is still a proud steel industry in Scunthorpe and Port Talbot. Different regional economies will demand different focuses and priorities for policymakers, so I endorse the Government’s plan to ensure that there are local skills improvement plans and that adult skills funding will be devolved to combined authorities.

Reform of the apprenticeship levy is long overdue. The levy is a tax on employers with a wage bill of over £3 million a year that funds apprenticeships. The problem is that the funds levied can be spent only on very specific types of training. For example, businesses cannot use the money to fund any courses shorter than one year. The new growth and skills levy will be critical, because it will mean that businesses will be able to pay for a greater range of training options, apprentices will have more choice and apprenticeships can be shorter than a year. It is very important that employers will be required to fund more of their level 7—that is, master’s degree-level—apprenticeships. The money saved there will be reinvested into foundation apprenticeships, which will give younger workers more opportunity and flexibility.

I know that the road ahead is challenging. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of skills shortages in the UK doubled to more than half a million, and by 2022 skills shortages accounted for 36% of job vacancies. Training expenditure is also at its lowest level since records began in 2011. Yet if we get skills policy right, the opportunities are huge. Total revenue from the apprenticeship levy is forecast to grow from £3.9 billion to £4.6 billion by 2029 due to rising wages. A broader skills base will mean more productive jobs, higher labour productivity, stronger wage growth and rising living standards for all workers, not just university-educated professionals. That will benefit young people, many of whom feel demotivated and disenfranchised and believe that the 21st century economy does not serve them. In places where they have been given a pound shop instead of a workshop, they may be right.

On future policy development, can the Minister provide more detail on the timeline for when we can expect the different phases of development of Skills England? I would also be grateful to know how the Government plan to align Invest 2035 with their post-16 education strategy. Both those strategies require prioritisation, so what sectors do the Government plan to focus on to drive up the number of apprenticeship starts? Are there any other areas of education and skills policy that the Government would like to devolve to local economies rather than combined authorities? For example, there is no combined authority in Kent. What plans do the Government have to ensure more apprenticeship starts in the industries of the future, such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, green energy and new nuclear?

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. Somerset is home to Agratas, which is a 40 GWh gigafactory at the Gravity Smart Campus. It is creating jobs and boosting the green economy. It is important that local people in Somerset have the skills to work in those jobs, so does the hon. Member agree that we should encourage local partnerships between schools and industry to teach science, technology, engineering and maths skills and offer those opportunities?

[Tony Vaughan]

The hon. Member is absolutely right, and that is exactly what Skills England is going to do. It is about the collaboration between all the different stakeholders in society, not just businesses and colleges, to enable us to get to a point where the skills need is being facilitated by education providers.

A high quality vocational education system will improve social mobility, and be one of the best ways to tackle the precarity of the low skill, low productivity and low pay economies that have been built over the last 14 years. I look forward to working with the Government to break down the barriers to opportunity for the 64% of young people who do not go to university, and to build a vocational training system that we can all be proud of.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Vaughan]

I thank the Minister for her response and everyone present for their contributions to this important debate. Members have highlighted an inheritance of widening inequality, increasing child poverty, narrowing opportunities and an education system crying out for change. They have also highlighted that the Government’s proposals for reform give us cause for optimism: the curriculum review, Skills England, reform of the apprenticeship levy, improved teacher training on SEND, free breakfast clubs in primary schools and a properly funded education system.

There are of course particular barriers to opportunity. We heard, for example, from my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) on SEND; my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) on young carers; my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) on kinship carers; and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) on poor school buildings. There is a long way to go.

To respond to the points made by Opposition Members, after the apprenticeship levy was introduced in 2017, there was a 31% fall in apprenticeship starts. That fact cannot be denied; it is a fact that is being responded to by this Government, and it is part of the inheritance that we are actively addressing. I am proud to be a Labour MP supporting a Labour Government. We are the party that introduced Sure Start, the single most effective measure for reducing child poverty. The measures we are taking will help ensure that every child, regardless of background, has access to the opportunities that they deserve.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling barriers to educational opportunities.